Now while Kenric was thus speaking his mother remained in Alpin’s arms, with her head upon his shoulder.  And when Alpin drew away his arm that she might answer Kenric face to face, she turned not round, but sank down at Alpin’s feet, and it was seen that she was in a swoon.

So Alpin carried her away in his strong arms to her chamber, where the women of the castle tended her.  But for three long days and nights she lay on her couch in a strange sickness that none could understand.  For those three days she was unconscious, speaking never a word.

CHAPTER VII.  THE ARROW OF SUMMONS.

How the three island kings fared in the dark dungeons of the castle of Rothesay on that fatal night need not be told.  Earl Roderic of Gigha had doubtless in his sea rovings slept on many a less easy couch.  But it may be that in those dark hours of solitude his mind was more disturbed than were his hardy limbs.  He had come to Bute full of a guilty design, by the fulfilment of which he had hoped to at last gain possession of the rich dominions that he had coveted for twenty years.  His own inheritance of the small island of Gigha was not enough to satisfy his vaulting ambition, and the growing power of the King of Norway, who was year by year extending his territories in the west of Scotland, offered a further inducement to Roderic, who believed that by slaying his brother Hamish, and taking his place, he might bring the island of Bute under the protection of the Norwegian crown.

His design was clumsily planned, for though subtle as a fox, Roderic was yet an ignorant man, even for those uncultured times, and he had failed to take into account the two sons of Earl Hamish, both of whom stood between him and the coveted earldom, and who now appeared to him as an obstacle not easy to overcome.

But for the unexpected appearance of Kenric, however, even this obstacle in his path might have been cleared, for he had planned that in the darkness and quiet of the night he would steal into the sleeping chamber of Alpin and so deal with him that he would never again waken to claim his dead father’s lands.  Roderic had learned from the Lady Adela that her younger son, Kenric, was but a boy of sixteen, living with the learned abbot of St. Blane’s, and to the wicked earl of Gigha it seemed that Kenric might be disposed of by very simple means.

But now, even after having slain his brother, he had failed in his object.  Instead of being king in Bute, he was a prisoner in the deepest dungeon of Rothesay Castle.

The moor fowl had scarcely shaken the dew from off their wings ere the two sons of the dead Earl Hamish were climbing the heathery heights behind Rothesay.  With them went the aged Dovenald, bearing in his arms a young goat, white as the driven snow.  When they were upon the topmost knoll they stood a while.  Dovenald laid down the bleating kid, whose little feet were tethered one to the other, and he bade the two youths go about and gather some dry twigs of heather and gorse that a fire might be made.